1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for threading a slider onto a pair of opposed stringers for a slide fastener.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For attaching a slide fastener to a garment, it is a known practice in garment making to sew a pair of fastener stringers onto the garment and then to thread the pair of fastener stringers through a slider while the latter is held in place by a tool. At that time respective leading end portions, which are devoid of fastener elements, of the two fastener stringers are threaded through the slider from a front flared end thereof, and then the respective leading ends of the opposed stringers are laterally aligned with each other, whereupon the opposed stringers are drawn from the slider with the leading ends of the stringers firmly held by hand in their aligned position.
A primary problem with this conventional technology is that divergence in coupling the opposed stringers would often occur especially if the slide fastener is the type shown in FIG. 11 of the accompanying drawings in which the slide fastener has a so-called separable bottom stop composed of male and female stop halves mounted on the opposed stringers at the respective bottom end portions of the opposed rows of fastener elements. This is partly because the two stringers are different in resistance to passing through the slider due to the different configurations of the male and female stop halves, and partly because manual holding of the leading ends of the stringers is inadequate to maintain them in their aligned position. In order to correct such miscoupling of the opposed stringers, it is necessary to remove the top stops from the respective stringers, then to remove the stringers from the slider, and finally to separate the opposed stringers for rethreading. However, the top stops of the slide fastener of FIG. 11 are mounted on the stringers by injection-molding and hence are not easy to remove. Even if the injection-molded top stops were removed, such slide fastener would be unrecoverably defective.